Siren Song
by FantasyFreeMe
Summary: AU. merman!Kurt, human!Blaine. When Kurt joins an elite group of Sirens known as the Lures, he is faced with the task of killing the young sailor Blaine Anderson. What happens, though, when he begins to fall for his prey? Rated M for later chapters.


_First post to FF!_

_I do not own Glee or any of its characters.  
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_Inspired by dumbledorable from Tumblr.  
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><p>The sirens had been there longer than could be recorded. Building their kingdoms beneath the waves, the schools of unearthly beauty swam, their ethereal songs calling, calling, calling…<p>

It was not like a human voice. There was no spectrum it could be compared to, those notes, clear and crisp and piercing with every harmony possible – from the hopeful to the unsettling – ghosting in the background. The voice was the highest subject of regard among the sirens. Great beauty was a close second, but the quality and range of a single voice was considered the holiest bestowal. The voice of a siren could bend the emotions and infuse the mind with a million ideas born of a single note. And, with such power of vocalization, it had to be turned into something low, something evil.

The first time it happened was an accident. A young mermaid had wandered up to the surface, softly singing her siren's songs, when the sailors of a ship heard the noise. Hopelessly enticed, they set their course to find her, perched on a high rock, the notes enveloping the men in ecstasy.

In the next moment, a shower of wood shattered against the high rocks, and not a single sailor was left alive. Frightened, the girl escaped back into her ocean home. The matriarch of the Siren kingdom, Empress Sue, jumped at the opportunity, setting her subjects out to lure and destroy the passing sailors.

In swarms they would perch onto seaside rocks, letting their melodies float into the salty air. On passing ships, men would hear their songs and instantly feel their effect. It was the greatest euphoria of all, tangling the notes through the folds of their minds, infusing them through their bloodstream and electrifying them. And yet, it left an aftertaste of dissatisfaction. They needed more; and instantaneous addiction. And as they approached the source, the last thing they would see would be a shroud of pale, naked, feminine bodies against the moonlight before their minds were tortured into destruction and they were thrashed against the rocks.

The mermaids ran the Siren world. They were the ones with the voices and therefore the power. Mermen were second class citizens, built to defend and occasionally entertain with their inferior vocals. That, though, was altered the day Kurt Hummel was born.

Burt Hummel was a craftsman in the world the Sirens built. He and his wife had fertilized an egg together, and the time came for it to hatch. Neither could help the slight disappointment when it turned out to be a boy. Still, the parents nurtured Kurt through his years. Early on they discovered his gift for singing. That was normal; all sirens sounded generally the same until puberty. That was when the voice took on a tone that came to be known as multivoice, possessing the ability to sing any and every note at once. At least for mermaids. For mermen, their voices sunk into dull plainness. That, though, didn't seem to happen for Kurt. His voice too took on the characteristics of emotional control, of complexity and unearthliness. There was only a slight difference; the chillingly cruel undertone that drew so many men insane was absent. What's more, his beauty too only escalated, his pale skin and ice-blue eyes luminescent in the ocean's currents.

The day he came before Empress Sue was perhaps the most frightening of his life. At only seventeen years old, here he was the first merman in history to request to join the legions of mermaids on their missions of destruction.

"Now you're sure this is what you want," Burt asked sternly. The aging craftsman and his son swam nervously about the front corridor of the shimmering castle below the ocean's waves. Kurt swished his silver white tail, its ridges tipped with gold.

"Definitely. It's been my dream to be a Lure since the age of five, Dad." His eyes glinted with anticipation, lips pursed and tongue flitting out back and forth.

A sudden shouting from the other side of the heavy door left both sirens silent.

Burt grunted, glancing around the palace. He'd never seen it from the inside before, its walls of shining shells adorned with treasures of silver and gold and jewels as large as sand dollars.

"Some digs the Empress has. Say, do you get a cut of the treasure you get from those ships?"

Kurt nodded emphatically, smiling at his father.

"I'll bring home all kinds of gold and silver and gems…"

"NEXT!" a voice bellowed as the coral-doors opened. A single siren darted out, sobbing uncontrollably. Kurt gulped, squeezing his father's hand for support. The comforting returning pressure prompted Kurt to venture into the dark throne room.

A green phosphorescent rock lining the walls and ceiling cast the only light in the room. All around were dark tunnels, passages guiding to different parts of the castle. An enormous throne comprised half of intricately shaped coral and half of dry land treasure sprouted from the ground in the center of the room. Perching upon it was Empress Sue, her short, platinum hair in a halo around her bright yet aging face. Though nudity was a normal phenomenon within the Siren Clan, a long string of seaweed was wrapped loosely around her torso. Her stern gaze commanded respect and fear.

"Hummel. I've been watching you for a while now. Come in." Her voice was even, though with a hint of bemused interest. Kurt obliged, bowing his head before the Empress.

"At ease, there. So you're not satisfied with being a Defender? You _are _a scrawny one…"

"Ah, no, your highness. I want to be a Lure." A cold laugh echoed from the Empress's mouth.

"Of course you do! Everyone does. It's the most important job there is. But as a merman member of this clan, don't you think that's overstepping your bounds? Taking over a mermaid's job with the drawbacks of an inferior voice and –" she shuddered, "facial hair?"

"Well, I haven't started getting facial hair yet…"

The Empress eyed Kurt. "How old are you, doughface?"

"Seventeen."

"Huh," she said, glancing away in fading interest.

"Empress, please. You have to hear my voice. It's not like the other mermen. Please – just hear it?"

Kurt could once again feel her penetrating gaze searching over him.

"Very well, hit me with your best shot."

Kurt closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath. Slow and sure, the floating melody of a traditional Siren song trickled from his lips. The voice was soft in the hush of the saltwater, but the notes were strong and melodic. And with each burst of song, a thousand others ghosted behind it, harmonizing and building and echoing with intense emotion.

"Amazing," the Empress breathed, "your multivoice survived past puberty. Still," her voice returned to its normal, authoritative volume, "it needs work. You'll need practice if you're going to manipulate the minds of _humans_." She said the last word as though it was the dirtiest her tongue had ever uttered.

"But alas, I have no time to train you. I'll leave that part up to my girls." In an instant, she was placing her fingers in her mouth and whistling loudly into the waves. In another instant, three gorgeous mermaids were swimming into the room from some cavern unseen in the shadows.

There was the clear leader, a blonde with large, strikingly green eyes and an omnipresent smirk of superiority. There was another blonde, with wide, vacant blue eyes, and a brown-skinned siren with a stunning passion to her deep brown gaze.

"Quinn, Brittany, Santana," the Empress ordered, "Start your training. We've got a live one." The girls circled Kurt instantly

"You're pretty," came the mellow tone of Brittany.

"Eh, I dunno. Kinda skinny," Santana scoffed.

"A merman, huh? Might come in handy out there," Quinn's smooth voice murmured flirtatiously. It should have sounded arousing. The whole thing should have been incredibly appealing, their bare bodies swaying in the seawater as they continued circling. Kurt didn't feel a thing.

"Go on, Kurt. Follow them, through the chambers. I'll let your father know he'll be seeing you later tonight."

The three girls locked hands automatically. Brittany took Kurt's with a smile of assurance and they disappeared into the shadowy caverns.

.::::::::.

The tunnel led to a tower room, the golden rays of the setting sun streaming through the waves. Smooth stones were arranged in a circle around the room, and at the center a grand series of strings of gems hung from the ceiling.

"Welcome to the Lure's Lounge," Santana announced, floating onto one of the stones and leaning back onto it dramatically, "this is where we meet after every raid to divide up the loot."

Kurt's eyes scanned the room as he took his seat, fingers drumming nervously against the rock.

"The inner sanctum of the Lures," he said, impressed.

"I always get lost in here," Brittany murmured.

"We heard you sing for the Empress," Quinn interjected.

"Yeah? Not bad, hm?" Kurt asked haughtily, blowing bubbles onto his nails.

"Quite impressive for a merman. But we need to teach you how to really utilize that talent. That's what being a Lure is all about."

Kurt nodded and straightened his spine, sending the tendrils at his hairline floating up towards the ceiling.

"Teach me all I need to know."

"Well," Quinn began, "What you have to learn to do is weave your voice into the other person's mind. It doesn't really work on Sirens since we have more developed brains when it comes to sound. But with humans, you can weave around their thoughts and emotions and manipulate them."

Kurt nodded, but his brow furrowed.

"Can you explain that part a little more? Getting into someone's brain, that is."

"It's simple enough. You experience everything with the five senses, right? Humans, however, have a smaller capacity for sounds. We _bend_ their reality. The intensity of our music can literally shatter their brains. And that's just what we do."

Kurt blanched.

"We… _shatter _their _brains_? We don't just make them crash onto some cliffs?"

"We can't have any survivors, Kurt," Brittany said warily, "Not if we want some crazy humans to hunt us down. They're scary."

"But how can you make your voice do that? The voice is the only sacred thing in the world. What does that… _do_ to you?"

"Well for one thing, it takes away those virgin rings," Santana said, trailing her fingers over the ridges on her own tail. Kurt saw that unlike his, the mermaid's tails were devoid of gold. "We used to have them, too. It's natural for born Lures. If the Empress saw those, she must have known you'd make a great Lure. They go away once you corrupt your voice."

"C-corrupt?" Kurt gulped in saltwater.

"Make it useful," she corrected herself. "Make it powerful."

"It's scary at first, making your voice change like that," Quinn said quietly, "you have to bend it in this certain way, and it's like you feel it doing something to your soul…"

"Quinn's overreacting," Santana said nonchalantly, "It's not all that bad. Once you're used to it you can just focus on how satisfying it is squishing the brains of those nautical numbskulls." Kurt flinched.

"What? Is there a flyfish in here?" Brittany asked, glancing around warily as a messenger came to the Lounge's entrance. Quinn met him swiftly, the others ignoring the newcomer's presence. Kurt glanced in curiosity, but his attention was captured by Santana swimming to him.

"Awh, is little Kurt afraid of the big bad sailors? That's what we do, you know. That's why we have gold and silver and jewelry. We take from those weakling humans what they don't deserve." Santana swam up, circling her silver tail around the dazzling jewels in demonstration.

"I know," Kurt said quickly, "I know. I want this. I've worked hard to get here."

"Good," Quinn smiled mischievously, returning to the circle, "because there's a small ship headed this way and we are going to take them down. Just the four of us."

Kurt suddenly felt dizzy. He was being propelled into this so fast...

"Fabulous," he squeaked.

.:::::::.

The high rocks were slick with algae and the full tide kept a steady pulse of waves over the backs of the four sirens. The moon was positioned behind them, casting a silver light over their radiant skin. And the tiny ship, bobbing in the brine, was just visible on the horizon.

"They're so far… how will they hear?" Kurt asked, nails scraping the rock nervously.

"Oh they'll hear," Santana assured him, rolling her shoulders back and snapping her head from side to side in preparation, "and you can't stop singing. When the music stops they get a chance to settle back into reality."

Kurt nodded, apprehension flooding his stomach. He prepared himself, filling both his lungs and his gills to full capacity, and began to sing.

He listened curiously. He had never heard his voice above the water before. It was louder, not trapped by the density of liquid, and sharper, its softness replaced with dagger-like precision.

The four voices joined in perfect harmony, sliding over one another in long, delicate ribbons. Brittney's lifted them with a sweetness and innocence. Santana's voice crooned with a velvety sensuality. Quinn's voice was somewhere between the two, emitting a subtle smokiness. And yet under each beautiful voice was a bitter twinge of mournfulness, of darkness and pain. And then there was Kurt's. It blended seamlessly into the stream of notes, but still rang out with its unique purity. It was clear, crisp, soaring high above the rest. There was a certain quality to it, a certain welcoming that the other two lacked, contrasting from the haunting undertone with the other three voices.

Meanwhile, the shadow of the ship in the distance changed its course; it was headed directly for the rocks.

Kurt glanced at his golden bands over his tail, wondering silently if they would be there much longer. A surge of emotion infused his voice. It was not the mourning minor key of the other two. Rather, a pure escalation in passion overtook the melody. This was going to do something to him, killing humans. It was going to make him bloodthirsty. And despite the ever-growing silhouette of the small ship, Kurt doubted his decision more than ever. But there was no way to erase what had been done. This night would make Kurt a murderer. And as he let the unearthly music wash over him, he welcomed the thought.

"Alright, now you have to wait until you can see the whites of their eyes. Then we go for the kill."

The ship bobbed unwittingly in the night, happily floating along to its doom. With every minute it grew nearer, the men aboard crowded the forecastle deck, each eagerly trying to catch of glimpse of the mysterious singers.

"Perfect – now, follow our lead."

Suddenly, the melody became distorted. The flowing streamers of song turned rigid as glass and shattered into a distorted cacophony. The facets of the voices turned from silken harmony to sharp dissonance, screeching hellishly into the night. But above the screeches a single voice remained clear and bright and strong.

Kurt tried. He tried to contort his voice into a weapon, tried to sink into the vulnerable minds of the sailors. But his voice kept its passionate sweetness, growing higher and stronger.

The three mermaids continued their assault, and its effects were evident. Their victims' eyes bugged. Their faces contorted in agony. Yellowed nails dug through skin until they drew blood, releasing carnal screams into the night. One by one, they collapsed, until just a few sailors remained.

"Come on Kurt, these ones are just for you," Quinn said, speaking as though bestowing a gift.

The ship collided with the rocks, splintering the frontal masts and the hull. Water poured onto the deck, and with it slunk the sirens.

Brittany and Santana clutched the living sailors' legs. With two identical tails flying out into the moonlight and down, they shattered. The humans wailed in shock, their wide eyes searching for mercy in the two mermaids. They were received by cruel amusement.

"You two spread out and look for treasure," Quinn commanded, and the sirens slipped into the flooded crew's quarters.

Kurt slid along the deck to the sailors. They were surprisingly young. The youngest couldn't have been much older than Kurt, his shaggy blonde hair stained with his crewmate's blood, his green eyes wide with horror, reflecting the tightness in Kurt's own stomach. The merman was shaken, his heart racing, his mind moving too fast to understand the weight of what was happening.

"Now, let's practice," Quinn said soothingly, "you know the way you were singing before? That induces happiness. Go on, give it a try."

Kurt drew a breath and released notes of soaring music into the air. The sailors' features relaxed. Their broken wails of pain stilled to faint whimpers. One closed his eyes, as each of their features were painted with a serene euphoria.

"That's how we lure. Now put it into a minor key."

Kurt did, the tiny notes encircling the primary sound turning morose and grim. The sailors' eyes flew open, eyes shimmering with the deepest sorrow Kurt had seen on any face.

"Good, good. Sadness isn't particularly handy, but it helps to know how to use it. Now change keys."

Kurt lifted his voice up a half-step. A wild, animalistic rage overtook the young men, and they thrashed violently, some digging their fingers into the splintered wood.

"_Wow_ you're good. Anger is the most useless, but knowing how to access it will help you find fear. It's hidden somewhere between sadness and anger, but when you find it," her smoky whisper grew reverent, "it's the most powerful point you can access."

Kurt nodded, swallowing the salty air. His lungs were smaller than a human's and hadn't had much use in the past. They strained against his chest, trying to find more oxygen to supply his voice as it explored the area within that key change. Suddenly, as it slid between the noises, a sound he'd never heard coming from his mouth poured out. It released an eerie cool with it, not quite as powerful as the undertone omnipresent in the mermaids' voices, but something similar. Kurt kept on it, singing into the moonlight with growing power.

The sailors' eyes widened. They shuddered with a complete terror, more intense than even before, each desperately trying to crawl away on their elbows. Strangled moans filled their mouths, sporadically releasing themselves.

"That's it! I'm so proud! Okay, now it gets tricky. You have to kind of feel it. Feel the weakness in their quaint little minds, and sink into it."

Kurt closed his eyes. He could almost feel the way the notes were being received in the humans' brains, swelling each with terror. He could feel the vulnerability, the way the notes seeped into certain places. And he began filling them with an intensity so dark it pained his chest.

The humans were writhing now, screaming with pain. Kurt felt his voice changing, distorting, torturing these men –

Kurt's voice ceased with a shattered sob, and the men sat up, bewildered.

"Why did you –" Quinn's anger was erased by the sound of Kurt softly weeping.

"Kurt?" she asked, placing a hand on his shoulder tentatively.

"Oh come on, you have to be done by now," Santana called from the rocks above, holding a jewel-encrusted chest between her and Brittney. Quinn frowned, turning her own siren's song to the sailors and killing them in moments.

"Come on, Kurt. It's over. Let's go."

Kurt gulped back a sniffle and nodded, following the mermaids back to the Siren Clan.

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><p><em>So there's Chapter One! I've already started on the next one. Don't worry, we'll be meeting Blaine quite shortly. For the record this is my first AU!fic. Comments are always welcome!<em>


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